This story is making the rounds: ad executives are pimping online video as more effective than TV advertising.
Anecdotally, there are many reasons that theorem makes sense. With DVR culture firmly entrenched, TV commercials have become almost universally fast-forward-throughable with the exception of news, and sports, and Wheel of Fortune. Online video viewership is skyrocketing.
On the other hand, there are reasons why an ad executive would want to trend more toward online video ads. Online videos have a higher likelihood of going viral and creating positive buzz so that the ad execs can use empty phrases like “go viral” and “create buzz.” Viewership is easily measured, giving agencies something to report to the client. And if they flop no one notices. A bad Superbowl commercial gets a hundred million hands hitting a hundred million foreheads, but a bad online video can drift to oblivion (unless it’s REALLY bad).
It also sounds really good to say that online video is the wave of the future. There’s nothing to back up whether online video advertising actually drives sales more or less; but an agency exec who suggests skepticism will sound like a dinosaur.
This isn’t to say online video isn’t a great medium for message delivery. I think it’s probably the best, and that’s my opinion. This study asks marketing executives, and it was done by an outfit called EMarketer.com. It’s not exactly unbiased.
Jim Eltringham 